1. Hemp is more sus­tain­able than many other crops – The World Com­mis­sion on Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment artic­u­lated what it means to be ‘sus­tain­able,’ and it has now become a widely accepted def­i­n­i­tion of sus­tain­abil­ity: “[to meet] the needs of the present with­out com­pro­mis­ing the abil­ity of future gen­er­a­tions to meet their own needs.”

About 93% of our paper cur­rently comes from trees, often from old-​growth forests, which must be clear-​cut. About 40% of our trees are destroyed for tim­ber. Each cannabis plant grown can end up sav­ing 12 trees, and cuts chem­i­cals used in paper man­u­fac­tur­ing by 1⁄7. Approximately1 acre of hemp can also replace 2 – 3 acres of cot­ton, often grown with heavy pes­ti­cides and com­mer­cial fer­til­iz­ers which hemp does not require.

2. Hemp has been grown for­ever – The plant is so old, so use­ful, and so reli­able. Hemp cloth found in Iran and Iraq has been dated to 8000 B.C. Accord­ing to MIT:

“Hemp is also believed to be the old­est exam­ple of human indus­try. In the Lu Shi, a Chi­nese work of the Sung dynasty (500AD), we find ref­er­ence to the Emperor Shen Nung (28th cen­tury BC) who taught his peo­ple to cul­ti­vate hemp for cloth. It is believed that hemp made it to Europe in approx­i­mately 1,200BC. From there, it spread through­out the ancient world.”

3. Hemp is one of the most durable fibers on the planet – Hemp fibers are so strong they can replace metal and glass. Hemp fiber also has incred­i­ble ten­sile strength. Com­pared to cot­ton denim, 100% hemp fab­ric had 62% greater tear strength and 102% greater ten­sile strength. In ten­sile strength tests, the hemp warp endured 266 lb of pres­sure while the cot­ton only 204 lb, and the hemp fill­ing endured 178 lb of pres­sure while the cot­ton fill only 100. In the test for tear strength, the hemp warp tested at 19.9 lb of pres­sure with the cot­ton at 12.7, and the hemp fill­ing tested at 22 lb with the cot­ton fill­ing at 7.6. Henry Ford’s first car was meant to run on hemp, and was made of hemp plas­tics.

4. Hemp can be used as a fuel – Hemp fuel is also bet­ter for the envi­ron­ment, since grow­ing hemp is cleaner than grow­ing the highly sub­si­dized GMO corn which is in our ethanol gas. In the US today, about 95 per­cent of our ethanol is derived from corn ker­nels, and most of this corn is genet­i­cally mod­i­fied.

“Hemp can be made into fuel in two ways: the oil from the pressed hemp-​seed can be turned into biodiesel, or the fer­mented stalk can be made into ethanol and methanol. Biodiesel is com­pletely biodegrad­able and a much cleaner fuel for the air. Even the exhaust pro­duced from burn­ing hemp-​seed biodiesel has a pleas­ant smell.”

5. Hemp fab­ric is bet­ter than many oth­ers – Hemp fibers are hol­low, so when fab­ric is made from the plant, the fab­ric pro­vides warmth in the win­ter and helps to keep you cool in the sum­mer. Since it is also extremely durable, cloth­ing made with hemp lasts longer, and will not show signs of wear and tear as eas­ily. Hemp can pro­duce 250% more fiber than cot­ton and 600% more fiber than flax using the same amount of land. The amount of land needed for obtain­ing equal yields of fiber place hemp at an advan­tage over other fibers. Our fer­tile lands are run­ning out in this coun­try thanks to Big Ag prac­tices.

6. Hemp seed is a nutri­tious food source – Instead of invest­ing in GMOs, com­pa­nies should be invest­ing in hemp! The hemp plant offers incred­i­ble nutri­tion. It is a great pro­tein source, and is a vegetable-​based source of all nine essen­tial amino acids. Hemp seed pro­tein is 65% glob­u­lin edis­tin, and also includes quan­ti­ties of albu­min. What’s more, its pro­tein is read­ily avail­able in a form quite sim­i­lar to that found in blood plasma. It also con­tains impor­tant fatty acids, vit­a­min E, many trace min­er­als, and has the per­fect Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio of 3 to 1, which can help keep your fatty acid bal­ance on tar­get. Hemp is highly digestible, unlike soy, and can help heal peo­ple from immu­nity dis­or­ders.

7. Hemp grows fast – It takes hemp about 3 – 4 months to grow to full, har­vestable size, and the same acre of trees years to grow back before they can be used for the same things as the hemp plants would have been. Inter­est­ingly, our forests are being cut down 3 times faster than they can grow back. You do the math.

8. Hemp can be grown with­out pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides or fungi­cides – The use of these agro–chem­i­cals is epi­demic. Just glyphosate use alone is up to over 383 mil­lion pounds annu­ally and grow­ing. Hemp cul­ti­va­tion can help to restore nature’s bal­ance by stop­ping the use of these poi­sons.

9. Hemp is med­i­cine – The Med­ical Col­lege of Vir­ginia had been funded by the National Insti­tutes of Health to find evi­dence that mar­i­juana dam­aged the human immune sys­tem. Imag­ine their sur­prise when the results came back indi­cat­ing the oppo­site: Instead of caus­ing the death of mice implanted with brain can­cer, mar­i­juana con­sid­er­ably slowed the growth of their tumors and extended their lives, but even hemp, the non THC-​full coun­ter­part to Cannabis, har­nesses heal­ing prop­er­ties. Hemp/​Cannabis juice is rich in CBD. Many peo­ple juice with hemp and see some amaz­ing ben­e­fits.

10. Hemp is still ille­gal to cul­ti­vate – While there have been some advances with the Indus­trial Hemp Farm­ing Act of 2013, which allows cer­tain states lim­ited abil­ity to grow hemp, as long as the dried plant has delta-​nine tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol con­cen­tra­tion of not more than 0.3 per­cent, it is still a fed­eral crime to grow hemp, and it is clas­si­fied as a ‘dan­ger­ous’ drug. Say What!?

Add com­ment

User Guide is located at here. There you can also find tags for adding media to your comment